Island Blues

by Wendy Howell Mills

  Thankfully, the lounge doors were not locked. For a moment, fleeting doubt—why weren’t the doors locked?—but excitement won out over discretion.

  That excitement was soon extinguished at the flare of overhead lights, which revealed an array of people sitting at bar tables.

  Marilee Howard stood blinking in astonishment at this turn of events.

  Chapter Forty

  “Right before his heart attack, Lima mentioned that his nephew Kealy received another anonymous envelope of cash. Kealy was the only direct descendent of Gerry Lowry, who supposedly committed suicide back in the twenties. His death has been the subject of rampant rumors over the years. Many people think he was killed because he had a falling out with his smuggling partners.” Sabrina looked around the Shell Lodge’s lounge and saw she had everyone’s complete attention. Good. Marilee took her sweet time showing up, and Sabrina had to talk fast to keep everyone sitting in the darkened lounge.

  Marilee Howard, dressed in black jeans and shirt with her long red hair tucked beneath a dark baseball hat, sat at the bar with an untouched soda in front of her. The young girl listened without speaking as Sabrina recounted the events that led up to Marilee’s unmasking as the serial burglar.

  “Then Lima had his heart attack, and I didn’t think about anything else for a while. Yesterday evening, though, I went to the library and discovered some interesting coincidences. Most of the good stuff was in private diaries, not in the news accounts, but it was all there if you knew where to look.”

  “Sabrina, it’s three in the morning, and I don’t understand how this connects with Marilee breaking into houses. You should be ashamed of yourself, girl, trying to mess with my driftwood collection!” Missy Garrison glared at Marilee. She had needed no persuading to come this evening once Sabrina promised her the identity of the burglar would be revealed.

  Sabrina had a harder time convincing the other two victims of the break-ins to attend this overnight vigil, but both Mayor Hill Mitchell and Maggie Fromlin sat on either side of Missy. This trio of accusers did not seem to faze a defiant Marilee.

  “She wasn’t trying to mess with your driftwood collection, Missy. She was looking for rum-runner hiding places. That’s why she needed the handsaw. It was possible she would have to cut in the wall to find what she was looking for.”

  “And what was she looking for?” Walter Olgivie had an avaricious gleam in his eye. This was why he was here. After Sabrina came to him with questions about what kind of valuables could still be hidden in forgotten rum-runner hiding holes, he enlisted himself in the operation.

  “I don’t know what she was looking for exactly. I’m sure she will be happy to tell us.” They all looked at Marilee, who showed no signs of happiness or that she intended to tell them the time of day.

  “What I want to know is how you knew she would break into the lodge tonight, and what she planned to do.” Matt Fredericks looked weary. Only Sabrina’s abundant confidence that the Shell Lodge would be burglarized in the near future if he did not cooperate in the sting tonight had convinced him to participate. Sabrina wasn’t on his top ten list of favorite people at the moment, but he was too good a businessman not to realize what a messy burglary would do to the hotel’s image at this point. The Shell Lodge’s reputation was already in tatters after an employee had been arrested for the murder of one of its guests.

  “I’m getting to that.” Sabrina felt a wave of exhaustion hit and barely suppressed a yawn. She could feel two nights of no sleep catching up with her. “It’s pretty simple. Besides Booker Howard, Marilee’s great-grandfather, there were four men rumored to be involved in Gerry Lowry’s alleged murder, all deeply involved in the smuggling business on Comico Island. Those four men were: Sheriff Fitz Mitchell, David Harrington, Foster Garrison, and—” Sabrina paused for dramatic effect—“Kenneth Fredericks.”

  There was a deafening silence, not at all the reaction Sabrina was expecting.

  “I’m sure it’s because we’re outsiders and don’t recognize the names, Sabrina,” Patti said tactfully. “Perhaps you could explain further?” She looked tired, but kept stealing pleased glances at Sophie’s rapt expression. When Sabrina had confided in Patti her plans for the evening, neither were aware that Sophie was listening. But the plan seemed to tickle the girl so much that neither had the heart to say no when she pleaded to be included. Of course, Sophie told Dennis, so there he sat yawning and trying to look interested.

  The last member of their “unveiling the villain” party was Lance Mayhew. Sabrina wasn’t sure who told him about the plan, or why he was interested, or even that he did not come upon them accidentally in the lounge while looking for an after-hours drink. In any case, he sat in the back as always, soaking up every word uttered.

  “Don’t you understand?” Sabrina fumbled through her fatigued memory. Didn’t she say it plain as day? Evidently not. “Did I mention that Maggie’s first rental cottage, the one called Seas the Day, was built by David Harrington, a friend of Kenneth Fredericks, who constructed the house to be used as a rum-running depot? Sue Harrington, his great granddaughter, still owns it.

  “All of the houses that were broken into thus far, Hill Mitchell’s, Sue Harrington’s, and Missy Garrison’s—I’m not counting the unrelated break-ins that happened here on Shell Island—were connected in some way to the alleged cover-up of Gerry Lowry’s murder over eighty years ago. Hill is Sheriff Fitz Mitchell’s grandson, Maggie was staying in David Harrington’s old house and—”

  “Foster Garrison was my great-grandfather,” Missy said. “I’m living in the house he built. Are you saying that Marilee was breaking into houses looking for rum-running treasure?” Her pique had disappeared now that she realized Marilee wasn’t interested in her driftwood collection.

  Again, they all looked at Marilee, who affected intense interest in the bar napkin soaking up condensation from her glass.

  “It looks that way. That’s why I hoped Marilee would come tonight. I suspected that she was the guilty party—there were other possibilities, but Marilee made the most sense—but I knew I had no proof, so the only solution was to catch her red-handed. She dropped a note at the rental cottage. I think it must have been her list for the houses she had targeted. ‘Mit,’ ‘Har,’ ’Gar,’ and ‘Fred.’ Do you see? It’s shorthand. Hill Mitchell’s was the first house, Sue Harrington’s the second, then Missy Garrison’s, and finally—”

  “Fredericks. The Shell Inn,” Matt Fredericks said.

  “Exactly.” Sabrina felt light-headed. She’d been on such an emotional roller coaster ride the last couple of days that she wasn’t sure how to describe the way she was feeling. Numb was probably the best word for it. Numb, but the Novocain was wearing off.

  “Can you please explain again about this Gerry Lowry’s suicide, or murder, or whatever it was? You ran it by me last night, but you were talking so quick I didn’t understand half of it.” Matt ran his fingers through his hair and then looked at his fingers as if baffled about the whereabouts of the rest of his hair.

  “There isn’t much to tell. Seventeen-year-old Booker Howard found Gerry Lowry dead with a gun in his hand. Sheriff Mitchell held an inquest and they ruled it a suicide. In the news reports it seems pretty cut and dried. But the newspapers don’t reveal the whole story, not by a long shot. Like the names of the men supposedly involved in a Comico Island rum-running ring, or the fact that Gerry was rumored to have been cheating his rum-running partners, or that Booker got a job with the sheriff’s department soon after Gerry’s death.”

  “How did you set this up? How did you know she would be here tonight?” Sophie leaned forward, her hands clasped in front of her as she watched and listened with intense delight. She could have been watching a movie, or the opera, and Sabrina wondered if she was expected to sing.

  “With the help of a couple of people, I spread the rumor that the Shell Lodge was infested with termites, and that demolition started tomorrow.” She pretended not to notice Matt win
ce. This was the part of the plan he disliked the most. “Who knew what the demolition crew would discover? From something Matt’s grandfather said, I suspected that the burglar had tried the lodge once already, and that this news would spur her into action. It did.”

  Marilee waved as they all turned once again to look at her. “Okay, Miss Dunsweeney, you got me, though I wish you would have come to me first, instead of setting me up like this. You’ve been so nice, helping me with college and everything. Were you doing that so you could get information?”

  It was the first words she had spoken since being caught.

  “I’m sorry, Marilee, I really am. And no, I didn’t suspect you until last night. I’ve been assisting with your college admissions because I wanted to help you. Would you have confessed to all of this if I had come to you with no proof?”

  “Probably not.” Marilee took off her hat and ran her fingers through her gleaming red hair. “But you caught me fair and square, so I suppose I’ll come clean. You’ve heard the official version of Gerry Lowry’s suicide. Let me tell you the story my Granddad Booker told on his deathbed.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  Booker had lived with guilt his whole life. It was a drink he took every night before bed, an acidic elixir that ensured insomnia and nightmares. No matter how much time passed, and as Booker lived into ripe old age, it was quite a long time indeed, he could not rid himself of that festering, putrid regret.

  He told himself that he couldn’t blame himself, that he was young when it happened, that they had hoodwinked him. This was a lie, though, a soul bulwark that crumbled nightly with the onset of the dreams. Yes, he’d been young, but he had not been stupid. In some deep recess of his mind, he knew even then what was going on, but was so eager to please that he didn’t stand up for himself. He didn’t do the right thing.

  And certainly later he knew the truth, or at least enough of it to know he had committed a mortal sin. He could have assuaged his guilt, cleansed his conscience, but by that time he was in too deep himself. If he brought them down, he would bring himself down as well.

  He turned to drink, and when that wouldn’t drown the nightmares, he turned to the Bible. The Bible only confirmed what he already knew, that he was going to hell. And as the cancer ate away at his pancreas, the nightmares ate away at his soul.

  So Booker turned to his sixteen-year-old great-granddaughter, Marilee, for redemption.

  ***

  It all started one summer day in 1925, when seventeen-year-old Booker decided to go fishing. Even at five o’clock in the afternoon, it was so hot the whole island was hiding away in the shade. It was a good time to get out on the water, and his mother, busy with a colicky baby, was glad to see him go. He stopped by one of the area fish houses to tell the caretaker, Gerry Lowry, he’d be coming by in the morning, hopefully with a mess of fish.

  Gerry Lowry was a big man who didn’t believe in baths and liked to cry when he got drunk. That afternoon he was crying, big swollen tears running down his flabby cheeks.

  “I don’t much care what you do,” he said to Booker. “I plan to be gone on the run boat tomorrow morning.” He took another swig of his drink, and then gestured for Booker to help himself to the bottle sitting next to his elbow. Since Gerry wasn’t given to displays of generosity, Booker was quick to obey before the fat man changed his mind. The only glass was the one Gerry was using, so Booker tipped back the bottle. He was expecting Orgadent, which was a moonshine popular on the island, but was surprised by the smooth, expensive taste of the liquor. He took two more quick gulps while Gerry was looking out the window, liking the way the whisky slid down his throat like liquid flame.

  “Where you going?” Booker asked, putting the bottle back down as Gerry looked around.

  “I don’t know. Somewhere. Anywhere.” Now Gerry was crying in earnest, his face red. “I haven’t been this scared since I fought at Argonne Forest in 1918. Boy, have I told you about Argonne Forest? I was a hero, a pure hero, is what I was.” Gerry toyed with his ring. It was gold set with a gaudy blue stone, with a German inscription on the underside. Booker knew Gerry took it from a German soldier with whom he fought hand to hand for three hours. He also knew if he didn’t get out of here fast, he’d have to hear the whole story again.

  So he left, and didn’t think much about Gerry all that night. Gerry said stuff all the time when he was drunk; sometimes it was necessary for him to dig deep for a reason to blubber. Booker caught a bunch of fish, wishing the whole time he had a bottle of that liquor Gerry was drinking, or at least some Orgadent. Fishing and drinking went together like fig jelly and hot biscuits. You could have one without the other, but why would you want to?

  Around nine o’clock the next morning, he decided to call it quits and headed back over to Gerry’s fish house to sell the fish and go home for a couple hours of sleep. He tied his boat to the dock and went to the back door. Inside he could hear Gerry’s snores, wet, slippery exhalations, and Booker thought if the fat man intended to leave on the run boat, he’d better hurry because it was almost here. Not that Booker ever thought Gerry would, anyhow. Booker called out, but didn’t put a dent in that massive racket. He tried the door, but it was tied with a rope from the inside. He went around to the front of the house, staring in curiosity at a tin wind-up speedboat sitting on the bottom step of the stairs. He wondered what kid had left the toy there, and if anyone would notice if he took it. Georgie, his little brother, would love it.

  The front door was open, and Booker pushed his way inside, saying, “Gerry, you old so-and-so, I got those fish like I told you,” and then he stopped, because there was something wrong about the way Gerry was breathing. Up close, it sounded wet and ragged and labored. Booker stepped closer, noticing the empty bottle on the table and the two glasses, but more interested in why old Gerry was making those strange sounds as he lay on his cot. Then he saw that Gerry’s brain was running out both sides of his head.

  Booker got right back on his boat and went looking for Sheriff Fitz Mitchell. It was unusual for the sheriff of Teach County to live on Comico Island, but folks said he had to live somewhere in the sprawling, sparsely populated county, so why not Comico Island? Others, more quietly, said he wanted to be closer to the rum-running, but most of the time they said this in voices too quiet to be heard. Both rum and the sheriff were hugely popular on Comico Island.

  Sheriff Mitchell did not seem surprised by his story, just wiped the sweat off his face and said, “Go fetch the doctor, will you, Booker?”

  Booker went to fetch the doctor from the mainland, and when he got back he found the sheriff and the run boat captain sitting on Gerry’s front porch, sharing a pint of something or another. They didn’t offer any to Booker as the doctor went inside to look at Gerry. After a while the doctor came back outside. He shrugged as he sat down and accepted the bottle from the sheriff.

  Then they waited for Gerry to die. Every now and then the doctor would go back in and check on the man, and around four o’clock that afternoon he finally died. Booker knew it was wrong, but by that time he was wishing the fish master would just stop breathing so he could go home and sleep.

  The sheriff had asked Booker a bunch of questions, and Booker answered them the best he could. When the sheriff asked him if he noticed the gun on the floor beside Gerry’s cot, at first he said no, that Gerry was so afraid of guns that he cried the last time someone shot one close to his fish shack. The sheriff kept asking, though, and after a while Booker said maybe he had, because by that time he was so tired he couldn’t think straight. He knew he didn’t notice the gun before, but now he could see it plain as day through Gerry’s open front door, lying under the cot, so it must have been there all along.

  The sheriff got six people together, including Booker and the run boat captain, and held an inquest. That Booker was only seventeen and couldn’t legally serve at an inquest didn’t seem to bother anyone. After some discussion, the six men agreed on a verdict of suicide. Much was made of the
fact that the back door was tied from the inside (no one mentioned that the front door was unlocked), and that the gun was found exactly where it would have been dropped by Gerry if he shot himself. Everyone agreed that Gerry had been an unstable soul since returning from the war, prone to hysterics and crying, and most likely killed himself in a drunken impulse. No one mentioned how much Gerry disliked guns.

  The verdict was made, and Booker went home to sleep. The next day Sheriff Mitchell came by his house and offered him a job as a deputy, and his mother and father were so thrilled they offered to move his little brother back in their room so he could have his old room all to himself again.

  He was paid twenty dollars a week, but before long the extra envelopes of twenties started coming in, and he couldn’t find it in himself to say no. After all, the islanders’ predominant sentiment toward prohibition was resounding disgust. Oftentimes, on principle alone, regular citizens would help smugglers evade capture.

  He bought a nice car and built a room on his parents’ house and hung out at the Shell Lodge with Sheriff Mitchell and the high rollers from the mainland. All for the price of being absent on a certain day, or looking the other way when told to do so. Another islander, Foster Garrison, was whooping it up in the gaming room, riding high on his profits as a smuggler captain. Booker was on first-name basis with Kenneth Fredericks, the owner of the Shell Lodge, and his buddy David Harrington. People looked at him with respect and he liked it.

  All the while, he knew it was wrong. He could never quite shake that feeling, no matter how much he enjoyed the attention and the money. He took to drinking a lot, and gambling. His parents heard the rumors of what he was doing, and encouraged him to quit. His father gave him a Bible one liquor-soaked morning and told him he needed to reacquaint himself with Matthew, specifically the part where the devil tried to bribe Jesus with all the kingdoms of the world.